Meanwhile Libya's terminal goes just about offline:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110226...jb3JkaW9uX2J1c2luZXNzBHNsawN0dXJtb2lscm9ja3M-
Turmoil rocks Libya's oil sector, slashing output
The massive oil terminal at Brega feels strangely deserted for Libya's second-largest hydrocarbon complex. After more than a week of turmoil in the country, production has been scaled back by almost 90 percent with many employees fleeing and ships not coming to collect its products.
Since the crisis began on Feb. 15, however, General Manager Fathi Eissa said the facility has had to scale back production dramatically from 90,000 barrels of crude a day to just 11,000.
At Brega, the huge spherical storage containers and reservoirs used to hold natural gas and crude oil are filling up rapidly with no ships to cart away their valuable contents.
"At this time we are operating with the minimum required number of operators, technicians mainly," Eissa said. "The production from the fields right now is at minimum, it is not completely stopped but it is minimum."
Many of Brega's 600 foreign workers mostly from Britain and other European countries were preparing to evacuate. The British frigate HMS Cumberland, which took evacuees from Benghazi to Malta, is set to return to pick up many of Brega's workers. They missed an earlier evacuation at Benghazi because of the poor state of communications in the country.